The authentic Horowitz magic revived.

Pianophiles who share an affinity for the legacy of Vladimir Horowitz will find this latest Sony release hard to resist. For the younger generation, this is one of those recitals the “Horowitz sensation” can still be fully appreciated as if it took place just yesterday. Following the release of Deutsche Grammophon’s ‘Horowitz in Hamburg - the Last Concert’ (21 June 1987), Sony has unveiled this legendary Berlin Concert from its archive. It takes us back a year before the Hamburg concert. Captured live and released on digital media for the first time, this is a recital that has both historical and musical values.

Horowitz made his solo début in the Atlantic Hotel in Hamburg on 19 January 1926. According to historical accounts, this event was nothing short of spectacular. The featured programme included Liszt’s B Minor Sonata, the Figaro-Fantasia, plus the Barcarolle and a number of Chopin Études and Mazurkas. Between this time until the early part of the1930s, Horowitz gave performances in Hamburg and Berlin. These included the Second Piano Concertos of both Brahms and Liszt (with Wilhelm Furtwängler and the Berlin Philharmonic), Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 (under Oskar Fried, and later, with Eugen Pabst, also with the BPO). He made his only surviving gramophone recording from that era in Berlin on 9 June 1931 at the Philharmonie’s Beethovensaal, with Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G Minor, Op.23 No.5. Anti-Semitic sentiment and political unrest limited Horowitz’s activities in Germany. His absence was further compounded by his notorious “withdrawal” and “returns” from the public concert-stage during the ensuing years. As a result, Horowitz did not again tread on German soil for 54 years until 1986. Three intriguing accounts by Dr. Norbert Ely, Jürgen Kesting, and Dr.Elmar Weingarten in the accompanying liner-notes recollect the experiences each of these writers had with Horowitz, focusing on how the fulfilment of the Berlin and Hamburg recitals in the latter years of the pianist’s life came to be. It was Dr. Weingarten’s first-hand memories as the Head of the music department of the Berlin Festival (1985-1990) that provided the most vivid account. He recalled how Horowitz spontaneously decided to offer an additional concert to the Berlin public at very short notice, by scribbling on the ‘dining menu of Hotel Kempinski’ the programme of what ultimately constituted his recital on 24 May 1986. Perhaps this later recital will be the topic of a future release from Sony Music, but in the present recording, listeners witness the reunion of a lost bond - the one between Horowitz and his German audience - a bond that had been severed for more than 54 years.

The first sounds on the first disc are of the audience applauding and applauding as Horowitz enters the Grosser Saal of the Berlin Philharmonie. Every recital since the pianist’s return to public performance in 1985 was a world wonder, synonymous with the acclaim received by pop-stars.

Then follows a series of three Sonatas from Scarlatti, a composer to whose works Horowitz brought ample delight and a fabled delicacy of colour on his infamous Steinway D instrument. Horowitz was however at his ideal best with the works of the Romantic composers, particularly those of Schumann, Liszt and Chopin. Kreisleriana evinces finesse and playful elegance - allusions to the world of E.T.A. Hoffmann. This masterly interpretation is both pliable and alive. The lilting dance at the centre of Liszt’s Soirée de Vienne No.6 was a favourite of Horowitz’s. Her it is played with virtuosic delight that even at the age of 83 shows that he remained in command of his fingers. This combines with a radiant and complementary youthfulness. The Sonetto del Petrarca 104 is delivered with a myriad colours and such intimacy that the fading final notes literally took the listeners’ breaths away. It was an experience that seemed almost spiritual.

CD 2 opens with groups of Russian pieces, two each of the Preludes of Rachmaninoff and Études of Scriabin. A glimpse of Horowitz’s love for the Polish dances was represented in two of Chopin’s Mazurkas preparing the ground for an elegantly majestic account of the A Flat Polonaise with its vociferous moments during the notorious left-hand octaves. Unexpectedly, the most impressive readings were saved for the very end of the recital in two of the three encores. These pieces were by far his most beloved: Schumann’s Träumerei and Moszkowski’s Etincelles. In the Träumerei, one can hear the poetic delicacy that washed away all technical impurities, while in the Etincelles, the delicate passages were equipped with a buoyancy and a tenderness that one might not have envisioned possible from the pianoforte.

Those who were able to afford the unprecedented ticket price of more than 300 marks apiece (or the discounted student price at 25 marks) to attend this recital must certainly have their own fantastic recollections to share, but to reiterate one such example from Dr. Norbert Ely who was the radio presenter during this Berlin concert, he described the recital experience as one that ‘revealed a lot of his [Horowitz’s] soul, exposing the inner conflicts of a century. One could hear that an era was coming to an end.’ The authentic Horowitz magic has been revived thanks to Sony who have captured a musician whose artistry was mellowed by age and experience.

-- Patrick P.L. Lam, MusicWeb International